{
  "id": "check-counter-alarm",
  "type": "entity",
  "name": "Check-counter regression alarm",
  "summary": "A meta-guardian that watches the guardians: the validator exports the number of distinct check families it runs, and CI tracks that counter. If a refactor silently drops a check, the count falls and the alarm fires — catching the failure mode where protection disappears while every remaining light stays green.",
  "locale": "en",
  "tags": [
    "ci",
    "regression",
    "guardians",
    "meta-testing"
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "rel": "protects",
      "target": "guardian-falsification"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "goodhart-resistance"
    }
  ],
  "questions": [
    "How do I detect that a CI check was silently removed?",
    "What is a check-counter alarm?"
  ],
  "claims": [
    {
      "id": "c1",
      "text": "The Citarium validator exports its distinct check families as an explicit constant described in source as \"the counter CI tracks\", so a drop in the number of checks is itself a detectable regression.",
      "sources": [
        "citarium-core-validator"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.95
    },
    {
      "id": "c2",
      "text": "The check-counter regression alarm is listed among the Citarium methodology's living case studies with real incident history.",
      "sources": [
        "citarium-methodology-brief"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    }
  ],
  "takeaways": [],
  "faqs": [],
  "evidence_tier": "primary",
  "evidence": {
    "level": "production",
    "source_types": [
      "production_system",
      "personal_experience"
    ]
  },
  "moat_flag": true,
  "winning_edge": "Documented from the production implementation itself: the exported counter and the CI contract around it are citable code, not advice. No general testing reference describes guarding the guardian inventory as a first-class alarm.",
  "confidence": 0.9,
  "last_verified": "2026-08-08",
  "canonical_url": "https://agentreliability.dev/k/check-counter-alarm",
  "api_url": "https://agentreliability.dev/api/k/check-counter-alarm.json",
  "jsonld": {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "name": "Check-counter regression alarm",
    "description": "A meta-guardian that watches the guardians: the validator exports the number of distinct check families it runs, and CI tracks that counter. If a refactor silently drops a check, the count falls and the alarm fires — catching the failure mode where protection disappears while every remaining light stays green.",
    "url": "https://agentreliability.dev/k/check-counter-alarm",
    "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html",
    "dateModified": "2026-08-08",
    "citation": [
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Citarium content validator source (@citarium/core v0.1.0, compiler/validate.ts)"
      },
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "agent-reliability editorial brief and blueprint (Gate 1 approved, 2026-08-08)"
      }
    ],
    "author": {
      "@type": "Person",
      "name": "Santiago Santa María Morales",
      "jobTitle": "practitioner — harness engineering and agent evaluation in production"
    },
    "@type": "Article",
    "headline": "Check-counter regression alarm"
  }
}